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Adonit Snap is a stylus that's designed to go with phones rather tablets because of its small size.

The stylus that I have is a review unit sent to me by Adonit. I've used many Adonit styluses in the past, some are bought, some are given. In this review, I'll compare it with a few others that I've own.

Build quality
Design of this stylus is unlike any other Adonit styluses before. It's designed like a carpenter pencil in shape. It's a flat stylus that measures only 4mm thick. It's also quite short at 12.2cm. It weighs 9.3g.

Because the stylus is so thin, I can put the phone and stylus in my pocket and not feel that I've carried anything extra. It's very portable.

The 1.9mm tip is small so it does not block lines as your write. Unlike other styluses that feature the 1.9mm tip, this one does not wobble.

With the stylus in hand, it feels like holding a piece of flat unwrapped chewing gum. I thought I could bend it so easily because it's so thin. Looks can be deceiving because it's incredibly strong. You're not going to bend the metallic body unless you're using an unnatural amount of force.

The smooth matte surface is available in black, white and rose gold.

Overall, it looks quite stylish.

Battery
Battery life is rated at 7 hours of continuous use. It needs 1 hr to be fully charged. I don't draw for 7 hours straight so battery life is not a problem to me.

The stylus uses micro-USB charging. I like this method of charging better than the USB thumb drive of other Adonit styluses because I don't have to bring a USB thumb drive around. I have micro-USB cables at home, in the office and at my friend's house. The micro-USB port is so much more convenient. And I don't have to worry about losing the USB thumb drive which I have lost one before and had to buy one to replace it, only to discover it was in my bag all along because it was so small that I could not see or feel it.

In short, good move on using the micro-USB port for charging. Do it for the other styluses, Adonit.

Features
Adonit Snap does not require Bluetooth to work.

However, if you want the extra functionality of being able to take photos with the side button, then you can pair it your iOS or Android device. I can't get it to work on my Android phone but it works fine with iOS. It's a shutter remote that's quite helpful because it makes taking photos with the phone easier. People usually take photos with phones using one hand holding and the thumb for the shutter. With the remote, you don't have to use your thumb to reach for the shutter on the screen anymore so there's going to be less hand shake as you can now hold your phone firmly.

The other feature is the stylus' body has magnets. In the packaging box, it comes with a small piece of metal with adhesive that you can paste onto your phone. This allows the stylus to snap to that metal plate. The magnet is strong so no amount of normal shaking is going to dislodge the stylus. The thing is, some mobile phones or covers already have magnets and you can actually just just those without the need to paste that metal plate. And if your phone cover does not have magnets, you still don't have to stick the adhesive because you can just put that metal place between the phone and cover, with the unpeeled paper adhesive towards the phone so it does not scratch.

Shown above is that small metal plate. I've not taken off the paper protecting the adhesive on the back.

If you're sticking the adhesive to your bare body phone, it would be difficult to remove the sticky stuff in the future.

Performance
To use it, you just have to push the button on the side and a green light comes on momentarily. It powers on instantly and since it does not require Bluetooth pairing to use the stylus for drawing or writing, you can use it instantly.

When using this stylus, I test for accuracy and responsiveness. There's no pressure sensitivity and no palm rejection.

On the iPad I've tested with the following drawing and note taking apps:

Sketches Pro

Procreate

Adobe Draw

Adobe Sketch

Medibang Paint Pro

Bamboo Paper

FiftyThree Paper

Penulimate

Notability

GoodNotes

Notes Plus

They all work quite well generally speaking.

Whether there is lag really depends on the the app and I'm glad to say that most are quite responsive. FiftyThree Paper is a bit slow but it's not a big issue. By slow, I mean the lines trail behind the tip. With other apps, the lines almost come out instantly.

Accuracy depends on how you hold the stylus. I find that if I hold the stylus where the flat side is towards the screen, there will be some misalignment where the line appears 2-3mm away. If I hold it flat side away from the screen, there's almost no misalignment. Generally speaking when I'm using it, there's no misalignment and that's great!

Holding it this way is more accurate.

Holding it this way can cause misalignment.

There's still some slight jitter when drawing slow diagonal lines. However, it seems to have minimized but it's still there. For taking notes it's not going to be a problem because no one writes that slow. However for drawing, if you do draw diagonal lines that slow, it may be a problem. When I'm drawing at normal speed, I don't really experience the slow diagonal line jitter.

This was drawn on Wacom Bamboo Paper app. I've drawn the diagonal lines very slowly.

Handwriting apps
Unfortunately, not a lot of handwriting apps work well.

The apps with best performance on the iPad are Wacom Bamboo Paper and Penultimate. My handwriting was captured quite accurately without distortions.

GoodNotes 4 did not work with the stylus. I could write with my finger, but I could not with the stylus. Notes Plus and Notability had distortions and stray strokes when I'm writing.

Notes Plus sample

Notability sample

Penultimate sample

Wacom Bamboo Paper sample

On the Android, I only tried the note taking app Inkredible and Wacom Bamboo Paper and both work well.

Last thing is about line skipping. There's rarely any line skipping when I'm using this stylus. I'm quite surprised because with other digital styluses, I do experience line skipping sometimes but with the Adonit Snap, it's rare. Currently I'm also testing the Adonit Dash 2 and that stylus has line skips once in a while.

Conclusion
I'm pleasantly surprised by the Adonit Snap. It looks good and the performance is satisfactory. It does what it says it does so I've no complaints. Initially, I was rather skeptical because of my experience with other Adonit styluses, or more specifically I did not like the slow-diagonal-jitter-line issue. With the Adonit Snap, they have minimized the jitter.

I've checked out some Amazon reviews and people are having problems with alignment, magnets interfering with the signals and lines skipping. Now that's interesting because I did not have any of those issues.

With drawing apps, the stylus works quite well. However with note taking or handwriting apps, it's a hit and miss. Penultimate (iOS), Wacom Bamboo Paper (iOS and Android) are the ones that work well for me.

Overall, I've a positive experience using this stylus.

I hope this review is helpful to you.

Pros and cons at a glance
+ Beautiful design
+ Small, light and portable
+ Micro-USB charging
+ Works well with most apps
+ Does not require Bluetooth for writing/drawing
+ When pair with Bluetooth, you can use it as a remote camera shutter
- Bluetooth remote camera shutter does not work on Android
- If you stick the adhesive to your phone body, it may be difficult to remove

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24 Comments

hey, I read some reviews here on your blog and watched some videos from your youtube channel .. and I have a question, I have a ipad pro 9.7 and I'm looking to buy a stylus, I'm not an artist, I would like an indication because I'm going make some annotations and navigation through the app .. which one you indicate adonit snap, mark or dash 2. Thank you

@johnsen
53 Pencil is rubber tip while Adonit Snap is hard tip.
If you like using 53 Paper app, then it's better to get the 53 Pencil.
If you use other apps most of the time, then Adonit Snap is better.
Actually Adonit Dash 3 is better because it has a better shape.
Snap is more for handphone users because of the flat design.

Im looking for a stylus for iPad 5 gen (march 2017), and your reviews are the best I found yet.
With goodnotes 4 you had some troubles, but adonit suport page (http://www.adonit.net/support/snap/) recommend the following "Snap does work with GoodNotes however the palm rejection settings need to be adjusted to avoid skipping and dropped lines"

Hi, I found your review quite helpful. There seems to be a problem with the stylus when diagonal lines are made where they are slightly wavy. Is this so with all styli or is it particular to the adonit snap?
Can you suggest a cheap but good alternative for artists that is good for precision and does not face this issue and also works on an iPad mini?

@Akshata
Most stylus have this line wobble problem. If you want a really good stylus, check out Adonit Pixel (more expensive). Or if you don't need pressure sensitivity, you can get any of the Adonit Jot stylus (the one with the disc tip).

What is better for iPad 9.7 the snap, script 1 or dash 2 I’m thinking the script since it has Bluetooth with palm rejection But it dosent have pressure sensitivity and other say the dash is better then snap or script and then there are some that say the snap is the best. But for mostly writing and alittle drawing which is the best choice from the 3. The Script 1 Dash 2 or Snap from research these 3 are the best budget stylus that are around same price and cheaper then others

I don’t think this new kind of stylus is any good use for drawing ANYTHING! I personaly think it isn’t the best and I don’t think it will be.

You see, the problem is that it slips and slides on my iphone. I can draw anything with steady lines and almost perfect curves. I think personaly how to improve this design is to make it less slippery and a little more grippy, just a bit.

Unless this produce is telling me I am a bad artist. And that I can’t draw lines.
Sorry for the negative feedback.

I currently have a hand injury and in a cast (I only have my index and thumb free), so I can’t write with a pencil, so I have been doing everything electronically, mostly on an iPad. What stylus would you recommend?

@Zach Brett
I'm not sure if I can understand your situation correctly. If you can still hold a stylus, and you want to use it for writing, you can get Adonit Dash 3 or Snap. If you just want it for tapping around the screen, you can get any of those rubber type stylus, Adonit Mark or the Amazon rubber stylus.

Hi there. Ur reviews r the best, thx for that. I am looking for a stylus for detail in drawing and painting on windows touchscreen all in one hp pc mainly, but also want it to be compatible to draw/paint on my iPhone6plus.

Could u pls recommend which styli to choose from plus/or website that might offer same info?

@Roquin Gervot
Is your computer a laptop where you can fold the screen all the way to the back? Or those Apple iMac like computer where screen and computer are in one? This stylus does not work on those screens.
It can work on the any phone though.

Hello ! I have an Asus Q535UD (2-in-1 Laptop) and an iPad Air 2 and am looking for a stylus I can use to take notes in class that is fairly accurate so I can understand my writing! Ive been doing research for weeks to find a good afforadble and was hoping you can help me out, Im not sure if this stylus will be compatible for my Windows laptop and Ipad.

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